"We can't allow things that are inaccurate to stand." — The Word of Our Dan, February 19, 2008.

Friday, March 01, 2013

We have a trend (II)

Herewith, another chart showing a more detailed breakdown of "voter" behaviour in the VOCM Question of the Day over the past eight years. As with the previous chart, the data is incomplete for some years, and is provisional for 2013 so far (up to February 26th).

This chart breaks the "voter" behaviour into three categories: polls on Federal political topics, polls on Provincial political topics, and polls on all other questions, including municipal and international politics, but mostly on law-and-order matters or fluff. "Provincial" topics include all questions on provincial politics, political parties and personalities, provincial political or government policy issues, and the provincial government's occasional forays into federal or other matters, such as the ABC Campaign of 2008 or Danny Williams' Holy War Against American Rocketships. In a handful of cases where a political or policy question spanned federal and provincial jurisdiction, it was punted to the "Other" category. "Federal" includes questions on federal politics, political parties and personalities, and on federal public-policy questions, especially in matters of criminal justice in general. (The numerous questions on the outcome of specific criminal cases, however, are included as part of "Other".)

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The dark-coloured columns show the median number of votes cast in each class of poll over the course of each year's data collection. The pale colours show the average. The two different measures help tease out the fact that the polls that get really, really goosed, tend to be Provincial ones — thereby skewing the average higher.

Participation in the VOCM QotD has increased steadily over the years, roughly quadrupling since 2005. Beyond the lower limit of this graph, in the early 2000s, your intrepid blogger seems to recall that a typical QotD would get a few hundred, at most a thousand or two "votes". The real upswing in "voter" participation started in the middle part of the last decade, and has continued ever since. However, for as long as this corner has been tracking the VOCM "poll", Provincial questions have always tended to get the strongest response, and the most-manipulated (pace Paul Lane) ones.

Interestingly, in federal election years 2008 and 2011 there were marked upticks in the average vote on Federal topics. There may well have been one during the 2005-06 federal campaign as well, but it would be masked by the splitting of the campaign into two different calendar years. Other than in the two mentioned federal election years, participation is no higher, or even lower, in Federal questions than it is in either Provincial or even Other categories.